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About the gold

About the goldSo lets talk about the hot potato; the very infected subject of gold making in Azeroth.

Why is it infected? Rather simple actually. People earn money illegally by buying, farming and selling it and by doing so seriously harming the competitive and fair side of the game.

Those of us regarding themselves as supporters of the legit and competitive gaming scene strongly oppose this trend. But even so we can’t let this keep us from discussing the influence of gold and how to make it. It is after all an important side of the game.

The main reason the currency of gold got such an impact is simply this; no matter if you’re a pvp- or pve player or both, or for that matter a roleplayer, the currency of gold is needed for reaching the ultimate height of you character. It is deeply needed to buy the stuff that will make you go all the way; the gems, enchants, glyphs and inscriptions. But also the materials to level your professions, to buy faster mounts and even to buy epic gear in the Auction house.
So even though it is true that you can level a character to it’s full level without much gold, the reality is that you won’t get much further then than that without it.

About the market
I will not go in to this particularly deep. This is not a guide and there are several good free guides out there that are easily found.
What I will say though is simply this. First of all earning gold is deeply connected with your professions. Learning to buy mats and to put them together creating profits, sometimes using the skills of several of your alts is extremely important. Perhaps that is one of the main reasons why it often is expected of you to have alts and knowing of to use them profession wise when you apply for a serious and highly skilled raiding guild; you need to be able to carry your own costs.
Secondly the market of any system, both in real life and in the cyber ether is a delicate thing. It can help you accomplish your goals. It can work against you. It can collapse.

Once in time I was given the advice not to undercut entities in the World of Warcraft Auction house if I wanted that particular market to crash. I was instead told to put up mats of that sort greatly overpricing the current standard. Creating a big gap between the entities in that particular market would create the instability needed for it to crash and having to start over.
What is true for capitalism in the real life is also true for capitalism within WoW.

The market in World of Warcraft is an economic system. Instead of buying gold, players should generally put more focus on breaking the system.
There are financial sharks everywhere. Be one.

Finally i’d like to know what your views on gold are? Is it a priority for you and if so have you learned to carry your own costs?

8 Responses to “About the gold”

It’s easier to work for an hour, earn ~ $35.00 USD, and spend that money buying gold in WoW (currently would get me ~20,000g) than it is to grind out 20,000g. When I was playing WoW I could make a killing off the AH. And I did it for fun. But when it comes down to it, it’s just easier to work a real job and pay for the gold. As long as that’s the case, people will buy gold. Sad but true.

Thank you for your reply Beefcakejackson5!
That might very well be right, people will continue to buy gold.
How big a problem do you think it is? Should Blizzard do more in order to try to prevent it?
There are great ways off making lots of gold with various methods, flipping the auction house is one. Maybe more should learn to earn gold by themselves in a satisfactory way before buying gold. Would there be a way off supporting that in the communities and by Blizzard?

How big of a problem do I think it is? It’s a big problem for Blizzard because that’s not revenue they are seeing. By making it illegal while people still have a strong demand for the product only drives it underground and then the profits go straight to shady blackmarket dealers that we know little about. Certainly, Blizzard isn’t getting that money. This resembles America’s failed War on Drugs. Second, and this also affects Blizzard’s players, is that it causes inflation in the in game gold market. Which essentially just makes the cost of items skyrocket. Some servers are just ridiculous. Blizzard does do some things to address this inflation (using alternate, temporary currnecies), but imo not enough. All of that said, I think Blizzard should embrace it, sell the gold themselves, and make anything that is purchasable also be attainable in game. For example, more than once I’ve wanted to buy a WoW TCG pet or mount, and that will often lead people to gold selling sites. So I think anything that’s made should be available in game, or should be purely cosmetic.

When I first played WoW, I wasn’t interested so much in the questing or the group stuff. I was just fascinated with the AH and making money from money. I did it for myself awhile learning about various markets and then joined a very private (at the time) group that was focused on sharing their money making secrets. Learned a lot about the AH, a lot about trading, overbidding, underbidding, overpricing, underpricing, cornering a market, etc. Then one day I looked around at all of my money and realized how useless it was. Sure I could buy tons of stuff on the AH, tons of items, but it wouldn’t buy me the top tier items (had to be a raider to get those) and for all the gold I had I couldn’t really change the game world in even the smallest way. And so I left the game. During this time I never once bought gold.

When I came back, I tried much more to get into the group aspects of WoW’s play. So I joined an active guild, got into pvp stuff pretty heavy since it had been revamped in the years that had passed. I even did some raiding. But this go around I really got into the quests and the lore and reputation. So for me, gold was secondary. I wanted the collection of pets or that hard to get mount. And that is generally where gold comes into it. I no longer want to be all about making money from money at the AH or by being the only seller of a highly valued item. That’s fun, but it’s a different game. So gold would facilitate all of those things. I had a full time job and was working overtime, so I had the money and the services I used were also professional and only once (for an item/not gold) I was unsatisfied. Gold was always delivered, my money was never stolen. I think it’s all about lifestyle. Some of us work less and have more leisure time, while others of us work a lot and have less. The people who work less play the game for gold more, those of us who work buy it because we don’t have the time to put in studying the AH or our own trade crafts.

I think players who want to earn gold by questing or grinding or the AH are still able to do so, it’s just they shouldn’t have to deal with really high inflation because that means they’ll have do the above three things longer to get the same items. You can’t simply put in high end gold sinks, because that could just exacerbate the problem.

Again, I think the best thing to do is for Blizzard to make it legal and regulate it and take a cut, if not controlling it all directly themselves. Then they make sure all items purchasable from third party sites can be obtained in game. Then do things in game to lower inflation rates.

Yes very true. Gold in it self is a game. Question is if the currency can get you enough things. Some things you can get, like mounts, pets and so forth (maybe even more lucrative with the pet battle system nowadays) but it is true as you say that you can’t get the best gear.

Interesting idea having Blizzard to legalize gold outside the game. Might work in some aspects, would definitely devalue the gold sellers. The problem I see with that is that it would strengthen the economically affluent players outside of the game. Is bringing that aspect in really the only way? Perhaps it is.

Maybe they could construct ways to earn gold, the gold bots couldn’t manage (random confirmations etc) and reward players that earn gold that way. Integrate that system and make it big. Might be a bit complicated though

[quote]Ernesto, you're wasting your breath. You can't talk to these warmongering NeoCons about laying a finger on the Holy Defense Budget. "Empire at all costs" is the name of the ga[eom/qu.te]Not So Swiff:In WW I – Flu killed more soldiers than did BULLETS.You and Ernesto are equally CLUELESS. You are worried about the DEFENSE BUDGET when the NATIONAL DEBT SERVICE is what you SHOULD HAVE BEEN keeping your eyes on.THIS and the "crowd out effect" that it has is what will eventually take away your government health care services.

My god, your whole family is equally talented and cool! Even the cat, with her/his gothic stripes… You all look s p o o k ySuch a better idea to go out for the evening. I was feeling a little ropey, so we taped a teatowel over the door glass so it'd look like we were out. Grinch-y!

gReep

March 16th

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